arDATE = new Array( "October 2004" ) arARTIST = new Array( "Bauhaus", "Dance Chapter", "Modern English", "The The", "B.C. Gilebert & G.Lewis", "Sort Sol", "My Captains", "Colin Newman", "In Camera", "Mass", "The Past Seven Days", "The Birthday Party" ) arTITLE = new Array( "Dark Entries", "Anonymity", "Swans on Glass", "Controversial Subject", "Ends With the Sea", "Misguided", "Nothing", "Not To", "Die Laughing", "You & I", "Raindance", "The Friend Catcher" ) arTRACK = new Array( "AXIS3", "AD18", "AD6", "AD10", "AD106", "AD101", "AD103", "AD201", "AD8", "AD14", "AD102", "AD12" ) arDESC = new Array( "Be sure to scoll all the way down to see the sleeve scans.

First single on this label, following the classic 'Bella Lugosi's Dead' from the band that sublimated 'goth' from thin air. A special treat, see the label image. My copy is the hyper-rare version on the original AXIS label.

Bauhaus are the founding fathers of goth rock, creating a minimalistic, overbearingly gloomy style of post-punk rock driven by jagged guitar chords and cold, distant synthesizers. Throughout their brief career, the band explored all the variations on their bleak musical ideas, adding elements of glam rock, experimental electronic rock, funk, and heavy metal. While their following has never expanded beyond a cult, they kept their cult alive well into the '90s, a full decade after they disbanded.

The group formed in 1978 in Northampton, England. Guitarist/vocalist Daniel Ash, bassist/vocalist David J (born David Jay Haskins), and drummer Kevin Haskins had played together as a trio called the Craze before forming Bauhaus with vocalist Peter Murphy. Originally, the band was called Bauhaus 1919 after the German art movement; by 1979, they had dropped the 1919 from their name.

In August of 1979, the group released their debut single, 'Bela Lugosi's Dead,' on the independent record label Small Wonder Records. Although it did not make the pop charts, it became the de facto goth rock anthem, staying in the U.K. independent charts for years. Three months later, the group signed with Beggars Banquet's subsidiary label, 4AD. The group's second single, 'Dark Entries,' was released in January 1980. Following their first European tour, Bauhaus released their third single, 'Terror Couple Kill Colonel,' in the summer of that year, which became a hit on the indie charts.

After touring America for the first time in September, the group released a version of T. Rex's 'Telegram Sam.' In October, they released their debut album, In the Flat Field, which reached number one on the independent charts and number 72 on the pop charts. The success of the album led to their first hits on the pop charts; both 'Kick in the Eye' and 'The Passion of Lovers' made the U.K. Top 60 in 1981. In October, they released their second album, Mask, which revealed a more ambitious musical direction; the new direction, which featured elements of metal and electronic sonic textures, made the music more accessible without abandoning the dark, foreboding core of their music. Mask was a commercial success, peaking at number 30 on the U.K. charts.

In March of 1982, Bauhaus released the EP Searching for Satori, which reached number 45 on the U.K. charts; another successful single, 'Spirit,' followed in the summer. That fall, the group had a number 15 hit with their version of David Bowie's 'Ziggy Stardust.' The success of the single propelled their third album, The Sky's Gone Out, to number four on the album charts.

Murphy contracted pneumonia at the beginning of 1983, which prevented him from participating in the recording sessions for Bauhaus' fourth album, Burning From the Inside. Consequently, the record featured substantial contributions from Ash and J, who both pursued more personal and atmospheric directions. After Murphy recovered, the band toured Japan and then returned to the U.K. to promote the summer release of Burning From the Inside. The album was another hit, peaking at number 13. In July, Bauhaus split up.

After Bauhaus' breakup, Murphy formed Dali's Car with Japan's Mick Karn and then pursued a solo career. Ash continued with Tones on Tail, a project he began in 1981; Kevin Haskins also joined the band after Bauhaus' split. J made some solo records and joined the Jazz Butcher briefly. Ash, Haskins, and J formed Love and Rockets in 1985 after a proposed Bauhaus reunion fell apart because Peter Murphy wasn't interested in the project. More than a decade later, however, with the careers of both Love and Rockets and Peter Murphy at a standstill, Bauhaus re-formed for several live dates in Los Angeles, mounting a full-blown tour in 1998; the two-disc Gotham documented the reunited group's performance at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom.", "Formed in May of 1979, Dance Chapter was a 4AD band that initially consisted of vocalist Cyrus Bruton, bassist Stuart Dunbar, guitarist/pianist/vocalist Steve Hadfield, and drummer Jonnie Lowrence. They debuted in late 1980 with the Anonymity single. A year passed until their next release, the four-song Chapter II EP. It saw the exit of Lowrence and the entrance of John Turner. The band then called it quits in early 1982. Only Turner remained in music, while Hadfield went into pub design and Dunbar entered art school. The only posthumous appearance of the band was 1985's When the Spirit Moves Them, a split release with the Faction released by Pleasantly Surprised. Really a great song...give me flowers, give me flowers...", "The summery hooks and warm lyrics of Modern English's biggest hit, 'I Melt With You,' gave listeners the impression that the band was an upbeat pop act in the early '80s. 'I Melt With You' was actually an anomaly in Modern English's early discography. Formed in Colchester, England, in 1979, Modern English was originally a punk group called the Lepers. Featuring Robbie Grey (vocals, guitar), Gary McDowell (guitar), and Richard Brown (drums), the Lepers mainly performed at parties. After Mick Conroy (bass) and Stephen Walker (keyboards) joined the band, they changed their name to Modern English and were signed to 4AD Records.

But NOT before releasing one single that is often completely forgotten when discussing Modern English. The impossibly rare Drowning Man single is offered here as an alternate selection. On both of these early singles, you can still hear the proficient vocal harmony that would make 'I Melt With You' so appealing.

Inspired by the stylish gloom of Bauhaus and Joy Division, Modern English released the singles 'Swans on Glass' and 'Gathering Dust' before recording their 1981 debut LP Mesh & Lace. Boiling with raw anger, dissonant rhythms, and weird noises, Mesh & Lace confused some U.K. critics while mesmerizing others. A year later, the group streamlined their sound, dropping much of Mesh & Lace's gothic experimentation on After the Snow. 'I Melt With You' was included on the Valley Girl soundtrack, and its video became an MTV staple. Although 'I Melt With You' didn't reach the Top 40 charts in America, After the Snow sold more than 500,000 copies. However, the band's next album, 1984's Ricochet Days, was a flop. Pressured by their U.S. label Sire Records to release another hit and exhausted from touring, Modern English began falling apart; Walker and Brown were fired from the group. Grey continued recording with different Modern English lineups. In the early '90s, 'I Melt With You' was played in a successful Burger King ad. Modern English started recording another album with After the Snow producer Hugh Jones in 2001.", "The The was the guise of Matt Johnson, a mercurial singer/songwriter whose music ran the gamut from dance-pop to country. Born August 15, 1961 in London, Johnson was raised in the flat above his father's pub, the Two Puddings, a haven for well-known celebrities and criminals; he also became exposed to music at the nightclubs and dancehalls owned by his uncle, where he saw performers like Howlin' Wolf, the Kinks and Muddy Waters. Johnson formed his first band, Roadstar, when he was 11; at the age of 15, he was hired as a tea boy for the DeWolfe music publishing company, and within three years, he was working in their recording studio as an assistant engineer.

After the demise of the duo the Marble Index in 1979, Johnson formed the first incarnation of The The with synth player Keith Laws; after playing their debut gig opening for Scritti Politti, the group issued its first single, 'Controversial Subject,' on he 4AD label in 1980 - fabulously produced by Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis. A year later, contractual obligations forced Johnson to issue the LP Burning Blue Soul under his own name; that year, he also recorded as a guitarist with the band the Gadgets, and the The contributed a track to the Some Bizzare Album compilation. A single was also issued for Some Bizarre, which was a prot-version of the song that would ultimately catapult him to fame. Click on the link at left to see.

In 1982, The The, now essentially a Johnson solo project, backed by a revolving coterie of musicians — recorded the album The Pornography of Despair, which a dissatisfied Johnson chose not to release; a 1983 single recorded with Orange Juice's Zeke Manyika, 'This Is the Day,' formed the centerpiece of The The's proper debut, 1983's Soul Mining, an excursion into dance-flavored pop. Illness sidelined Johnson for much of the following year, and The The did not return until 1986's Infected, an eclectic commentary on the state of Britain in the modern world. Recorded with the aid of talents like Neneh Cherry, Art of Noise's Anne Dudley and Swans' Roli Mosimann, Infected was also accompanied by an ambitious album-length video.

When The The returned with the dissonant Mind Bomb in 1989, they were once again a true band, with Johnson joined by ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr as well as bassist James Eller and former ABC drummer Dave Palmer. The same line-up remained for 1993's pared-down Dusk, but 1995's Hanky Panky marked yet another new direction when Johnson was joined by guitarist Eric Schermerhorn, keyboardist D.C. Collard, harmonica player Jim Fitting and drummer Brian MacLeod. The first in a series of occasional albums celebrating the work of legendary performers, Hanky Panky was a brooding covers collection honoring the music of country great Hank Williams. NakedSelf followed in early 2000.

Be sure to check out the additional The The track. Click on that link for a SUPER-RARE version of 'Uncertain Smile' on a 1980 single on the Some Bizarre imprint..", "Were his pioneering art punk work as the most experimentally inclined member of Wire Bruce Gilbert's only claim to fame, he would still be an important figure in the avant-pop world. Gilbert's work outside of that group, however, is at least as intriguing.

Born in 1946, Gilbert was already 30 when Wire formed, a former art school student with a background in the British avant-garde music underground of the late '60s. This atypical interest is an enormous part of what made Wire so unlike the other bands of the first wave of U.K. punk, as the esoteric leanings of guitarist Gilbert and bassist Graham Lewis meshed with the somewhat more straightforward style of singer Colin Newman and drummer Robert Gotobed. Over their brilliant first three albums, Wire expanded the sonic boundaries of not just punk, but rock music in general.

Wire's final release in their initial incarnation was 'Crazy About Love,' a 15-minute drone that pointed the way toward Gilbert's next projects. Partnering with Lewis in the duo Dome, Gilbert released several increasingly experimental albums between 1981 and Wire's reformation in 1986. The partnership's pinnacle was 1982's MZUI/Waterloo Gallery, a combination of ambient music and found sound that's among the most unusual and absorbing records of Gilbert's career.

During Wire's second incarnation (1986-1991), Gilbert actively pursued a solo career; as this edition of Wire moved more and more into a skewed but subversively commercial pop direction, scoring college and alternative radio hits like 'Kidney Bingos' along the way, Gilbert's solo records completely dropped all pretense of pop music. 1984's This Way contains Gilbert's first score for the avant-garde Michael Clark Dance Company and a pair of lengthy minimalist electronic pieces akin to Steve Reich's early-'70s work. 1986's The Shivering Man has more of an odds and ends feel, collecting several of Gilbert's commissioned works from the era. (A CD compilation of tracks from the two U.K.-only albums, This Way to the Shivering Man, was released by Wire's U.S. label Restless-Enigma shortly before that company's demise in 1990.) 1991's Insiding is the best release of this period in Gilbert's career; its two lengthy pieces, ballet scores commissioned by dancer Ashley Page, unfold and develop intriguingly over their allotted 20 minutes each. Released later the same year, the EP-length Music for Fruit sounds distressingly like leftovers from the sessions that produced the far superior Insiding. Gilbert also helped Lewis on his own post-Dome solo project, He Said, during this period.

Following Wire's protracted decline and eventual collapse, including a distressingly dull final release as a Newman-Lewis-Gilbert trio named Wir, Gilbert followed his almost entirely electronic muse (Wire's fearsome guitarist has barely touched the instrument since 1980) onto the dance floor. By the mid-'90s, the fiftyish Gilbert was a fixture in London's techno clubs, DJing, and remixing under the name DJ Beekeeper, most often performing inside a garden shed above the dancefloor for a touch of Wire-like visual humor. At the same time, Gilbert also released 1996's Ab Ovo, another Insiding-like collection of ballet scores. Wire occasionally reunites for live performances, but not recording sessions. ", "This is my personal favorite of the 4AD singles of that time. Unfortunately, all the historical pages I've found about Sort Sol are written in Danish. However, they released several LPs in their homeland, and two tracks from the LP Under En Sort Sol appeared on this 4AD single. Their one-off collaboration with Lydia Lunch which resulted in an entire LP worth of material, 'Dagger and Guitar' is legendary. ", "This is probably the rarest of all the 4AD commercially released singles. It was a limited run to begin with, so it was hard to get when it came out. So many people still have it on thier want lists.

My Captains were a post-punk band formed by Neil Henderson, John Lisle, Richard Rowland, and Richard Tarver. The quartet released a self-titled four track EP on 4AD in 1981. Following in line with many of the other early '80s 4AD acts, little is known of the band's other activities or following involvements. ", "Although Colin Newman is most readily associated with Wire, like bandmates Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis, he has undertaken numerous additional creative endeavors. Across a range of projects, the Wire guitarist/vocalist has consistently reinvented himself, venturing from post-punk art pop into ambient, electronic territory, along the way producing other artists and setting up his own label.

Newman was born in Salisbury, England, in 1954 and attended Watford School of Art, where he studied under Peter Schmidt. At Watford, he formed Wire with Bruce Gilbert in 1976 and the band quickly emerged as one of British punk's more innovative, intelligent acts. Having evolved at a breathtaking pace over three albums that were among the period's most influential records (Pink Flag, Chairs Missing, and 154), the group went on hiatus in early 1980.

With Wire producer Mike Thorne, Newman immediately embarked on a solo album, A-Z, much of which had been written during the making of 154. Recognizing A-Z's commercial viability, Newman's U.S. label suggested extensive touring to break the album, but since he had already been through this process with Wire, and with little success, he declined. (The A-Z track 'Alone' would later be heard by millions on the soundtrack to Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs.)

For the follow-up, Provisionally Entitled the Singing Fish, Newman and Thorne parted company. Thorne was convinced of Newman's chart potential but Newman wasn't interested in making purely commercial records. Inspired partly by Lewis and Gilbert's experiments as Dome, The Singing Fish was a moderately ambient, Eno-esque exercise. Although he re-adopted a more conventional, group-based, rock approach for 1982's Not To, Newman had become increasingly frustrated with the music business and, after producing the Virgin Prunes' If I Die, I Die, disappeared to India for a year.

Following Newman's return to Britain in 1984, Wire resumed its activities, releasing The Ideal Copy in 1986. The next five years were especially productive as Newman kept his creative options open, recording and touring with Wire and also pursuing solo projects. Having produced Minimal Compact's Raging Souls, Newman moved to Brussels and, in collaboration with Minimal Compact's Malka Spigel made two more albums, Commercial Suicide (1986) and the synthesizer-based It Seems (1988). Throughout this period, both Wire's and Newman's own recordings became increasingly computer-oriented. While advances in digital technology prompted Wire drummer Robert Gotobed's departure and temporarily ended the band's existence as a foursome, they also stimulated a new phase in Newman's work.

With Spigel, he relocated to London in the early '90s, founded the Swim label, and put out records by diverse electronic artists including Ronnie & Clyde, Lobe, dol-lop, and Pablo's Eye. Energized by the flourishing techno and electronica scenes, Newman collaborated with Spigel during the '90s on her Rosh Ballata (1993) and under various monikers: Oracle, Immersion, Earth, Oscillating, and Intens.

In 1996, as Immersion, the pair contributed a sound installation to a group show at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin. The following year saw the release of Bastard, an album of instrumental, melodic electronica that was Newman's first self-credited record since It Seems. In addition to working on Spigel's second full-length record, My Pet Fish, co-producing Silo's Instar, and remixing such diverse bands as Bowery Electric, Hawkwind, and Gentle Giant, Newman returned to performance in 1998-1999, playing gigs in Europe and America with Spigel. Another Immersion album, the abstract, ambient Low Impact, followed, and 2000 found Newman and Spigel again playing live as Immersion, this time with more of a multimedia emphasis.

Just as Newman had recaptured some of punk's original D.I.Y. spirit with the foundation of the Swim label, in 2001 he continued in the same vein with the launch of PostEverything.com — a web-based store aimed at the distribution of independently released music.

Amid this flurry of millennial activity, Newman also regrouped with Wire for concerts in the U.K. and the U.S. in 2000 and the band eventually began recording again. The first entirely new Wire material in over a decade appeared on 2002's Read & Burn 01. ", "Jeff Wilmott (drums and piano), Pete Moore (bass), Andrew Gray (guitar and keyboards), and David Steiner (vocals and keyboards) formed the bleak post-punk of In Camera. A single and EP (Die Laughing and IV Songs) were both released in 1980 on 4AD, characterized in the press as second-rate Joy Division cloning -- which is bizarre, because I don't hear Joy Division in them at all. The drumming is different, the guitar sounds are wrong, the bass is way too oblique, and the vocals are such that a JD comparison is confounding beyond words. I might have understood a comparison to, say, Crispy Ambulance...

Fin, an EP of the band's lone session for John Peel, was released a year after their early 1981 breakup. Ten years later, the quartet re-grouped to record a batch of new material, which appeared on the Teen Beat/4AD compilation 13 (Lucky for Some). The release also included the entirety of their previous releases. ", "After the breakup of Rema Rema, Gary Asquith, Mick Allen, and Mark Cox formed the art-damaged discordance of Mass with Danny Briottet. One of the earliest 4AD bands, they debuted with the You and I single in 1980, following it up a year later with the full-length Labour of Love. Asquith and Briottet went on as Renegade Soundwave, while Allen and Cox went into the Wolfgang Press. ", "A mysterious band whose discography was limited to one excellent single on 4AD, it's uncertain who comprised the Past Seven Days. Their lone release, 'Raindance' b/w 'So Many Others,' was released in a small pressing in 1981. Featuring scratchy guitars, sparse and angular rhythms, and moody vocals, both sides of the release sounded like a drier version of the Comsat Angels. Their entire recorded output can be obtained on the early 4AD compilation Natures Mortes, reissued in the U.K. by the label in the late '90s.", "The Birthday Party were one of the darkest and most challenging post-punk groups to emerge in the early '80s, creating bleak and noisy soundscapes that provided the perfect setting for vocalist Nick Cave's difficult, disturbing stories of religion, violence, and perversity. Under the direction of Cave and guitarist Rowland S. Howard, the band tore through reams of blues and rockabilly licks, spitting out hellacious feedback and noise at an unrelenting pace. As the Birthday Party's career progressed, Cave's vision got darker and the band's songs alternated between dirges to blistering sonic assaults.

Originally, the Australian band was called the Boys Next Door, comprising Cave, Howard, Mick Harvey (guitar, drums, organ, piano), bassist Tracy Pew, and drummer Phill Calvert. After the Door Door album and Hee Haw EP under that name, the band moved to London and switched its name to the deceptively benign Birthday Party. Once they arrived in Britain, their demented, knotty post-punk began to gel. They released their first international album, Prayers on Fire, in 1981, earning critical praise in the U.K. and U.S. While the band was preparing to record the follow-up, Pew was jailed for drunk driving; former Magazine member Barry Adamson, Harry Howard, and Chris Walsh filled in for the absent Pew on 1982's Junkyard.

After the release of Junkyard, the Birthday Party fired Calvert and moved to Germany, where they began collaborating with such experimental post-punk acts like Lydia Lunch and Einstürzende Neubauten. Harvey left in the summer of 1983. The group briefly continued with drummer Des Heffner, but it soon disbanded after a final concert in Melbourne, Australia. Cave had the most successful solo career, recording a series of albums in the '80s and '90s that maintained his status as a popular cult figure; Harvey joined Cave's backing band, the Bad Seeds. Howard joined Crime & the City Solution, which also featured his brother Harry and Harvey. " )